An Occult Physiology

An Occult Physiology: The Blood as Manifestation and Instrument of the Human Ego

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THE
BLOOD AS MANIFESTATION ANDINSTRUMENT OF THE HUMAN EGO

LECTURE 6

26th March, 1911.

FROM
the last lecture we were able to gather that
man, as a physical organisation, separates himself from the outside
world, to a certain extent, by means of his skin. When we conceive
the human organism entirely in the light in which we have had to do
during the preceding lectures, it becomes necessary to say that it is
this human organism itself, with its various force-systems, which
provides itself with a definite external boundary by means of the
skin. In other words, we must understand clearly that the human
organism is a system of forces of a nature so self-determined that it
gives itself the exact outline of form which appears in the contours
of our skin. We shall have to say, therefore, that in connection with
the life-process of man there is the interesting fact that in the
outer border of the form we have, expressed in a picture, as it were,
the combined activity of all the force-systems of the organism. If,
on the other hand, the skin itself is to be such an expression for
the organism, then we should have to presuppose that it must actually
be possible in some way to find the whole man, in a certain sense, in
the skin. For, if man as he exists is so to construct himself that
the outer skin, as the boundary of his form, expresses what he is, it
must in that case be possible to find in the skin everything
belonging to his total organisation. As a matter of fact, if we look
into what belongs to this total organisation of man, we shall find
out how true it is that everything is present in the skin, inside the
skin itself, which is present as a tendency in the force-systems of
the entire organism.

In all the preceding
we have seen that the whole man, in his appearance as earth-man, has
in his blood-system the instrument of the ego, so that he actually is
man by reason of the fact that he harbours within himself an
ego, and that this ego can create an expression of itself as
far as the physical system, can work with the blood as its
instrument. And now, if the surface of the body, the boundary of the
form, is an essential member of the whole organisation, we must
conclude that this whole organisation must be active by means of the
blood as far as the skin, in order that an expression of the whole
human being in so far as he is physical can exist. If we observe the
skin — and we must understand it as consisting of several
layers stretched over the entire surface of the body — we find
that, as a matter of fact, fine blood vessels do extend into this
skin, and we are therefore obliged to conclude that it is by means of
these fine blood vessels which extend into the skin that the ego is
able to send out its forces and create for itself, through the blood,
an expression of the human being extending as far as the skin. We
know, furthermore, that the nervous system is the physical instrument
for everything which we may characterise as consciousness. And,
inasmuch as the boundary of the bodily surface is an expression of
the plan of the human being as a whole, the nerves must also reach
out into the skin-boundary in order that man may express himself
adequately in this skin-boundary. We see, therefore, spreading out
close to the fine blood vessels lying within the layers of the skin,
the nerve-terminations, commonly although not quite correctly called
tactile corpuscles, because it is believed that with the help of
these man perceives the external world through the sense of touch,
just as he perceives light and sound through the eye and the ear.
Such is not the case, however, and we shall see later what the facts
really are.

Thus we find present
in the skin what constitutes the expression, or the bodily organ, of
the human ego; and we find also what constitutes the expression of
human consciousness reaching out into the skin in the form of fine
nerves and their projections. Then we must look around for the
expression of what we may consider as the instrument of the
life-process. We have already in our last lecture directed attention
to this instrument of the life-process, in our discussion of the
function of secretion. In this function, in which we have seen that a
sort of hindering takes place, as it were, we may recognise the
expression of the life-process, to the extent that a living being
which wills to exist in the world is compelled to shut itself off
from the outside world. This self-enclosing can take place only by
its experiencing a hindering within itself. This living through a
hindrance in itself is brought about by means of the organs of
secretion, which may be described in the broadest sense as
glands. Glands are organs of secretion; and, in so far as
they are such, there takes place in them that sort of hindrance which
calls forth inner resistance, in order that a being may shut itself
off within itself. We must presuppose, therefore, that such organs of
secretion, similar to those we have everywhere else in the organism,
belong also to the skin. And they do belong to the skin; for we
find, in the skin organs of secretion, glands of the greatest
possible variety, which carry on this function of secretion, in other
words, a life-process, within the skin.

Now, if we ask
finally what underlies this life-process, we shall find there
something we may call a purely material process, that is, the
conveying of substances from one organ to another. At this point we
must differentiate carefully between a process such as has to do with
life and is a process of secretion, which creates an inner
hindrance, and that process which transports substances quite
externally, which causes a transference of substances from one organ
to another. These are not the same. To a materialistic conception it
might seem as if they were, but to a living grasp of reality they are
not so. As long as we are alive we are not dealing, in a single
member of the human organisation, with a mere transportation of
substances from one organ to another. In the very moment, rather,
when the substances of nutrition are taken in by the life-process, we
have to do with occurrences such as those of the inner secretive
processes. Thus we come down a step from the real life-process to the
process of the physical body when we say that this process of
secretion, looked at physically, is such that the substances
of nutrition which are taken in are transported to all the different
parts of the physical body; whereas in its other aspect it is a
living activity, a becoming aware of itself, as it were, on the part
of the organism in its own inner being, through the setting up of
hindrances. Through the life-processes there takes place at the same
time a transporting of substances, and we find this in the skin just
as in the other parts of the organism. The nutritive substances are
continually being secreted, carried outwards in the skin, and there
also excreted through the process of perspiration, so that here also
what we may call a transporting in the physical sense, a changing of
the substances in the organism, is physically present.

We have thus set
forth in its essence the fact that even in the external organ of the
skin are present both the blood-system, as the expression of the ego,
and the nervous system as the expression of the consciousness. And
now I wish little by little to direct you to the fact that we have a
right to bring together all phenomena of consciousness under the
expression “astral body,” that is, to conceive the
nervous system comprehensively as an expression of the astral body;
that we have what we may call the glandular system as an expression
of the ether-body, or life-body; and the actual process of
nutrition and depositing of substances as an expression of the
physical body. To this extent all the separate members of the human
organism are actually present in the skin-system, through which man
shuts himself off from the outside world. Now, we must take into
account the fact that all such divisions of the human organisation as
the blood-system, the nervous system, the nutritive system, etc.,
form in their mutual relations a whole; and that when we
observe these four systems of the human organisation and have them
before us in the physical body, we are viewing the human organism in
two aspects, as it were. We actually have it before us in two aspects
and in such a way, indeed, that we may say that the human organism
has meaning within our earth-existence only if, as an entire
organism, it is the instrument of the ego. It can be this, however,
only if the most immediate instrument which the human ego can employ,
the blood-system, is present in it.

We can state thus
that the blood-system is the most immediate instrument of the human
ego. Yet the blood-system is possible only if all the other systems
are first existent. The blood is not only, according to the meaning
of the poet's words, “a very special fluid”; it is
also obvious that it cannot exist as it is except by finding a place
for itself in the entire remaining organism; its existence must
necessarily be prepared for by all the rest of the human organism.
The blood, as it exists in man, cannot be found anywhere else than in
the human organism. We shall refer, further on, to the relation of
the human blood to the blood of the animal; and this will be a very
important consideration, since external science to-day takes little
notice of it. To-day we are dealing with blood as the expression of
the human ego, taking account, at the same time, of a remark which
was made in the first lecture: namely, that what is here said
concerning man cannot, without further thought, be applied to any
other kind of earth-being whatever. We may say then that, when once
the entire remaining organism of man is constructed as it is, it is
then capable of receiving into itself the circulatory course of the
blood, is capable, that is, of carrying the blood, of having within
itself that instrument which is the tool of our ego. The whole human
organism, however, must first be built up for this purpose.

As you know, there
are other beings on the earth which seem to have a certain kinship
with man, but which are not in a position to bring to expression a
human ego. In their case it is obvious that what appears similar in
these other systems to human potentialities is built up otherwise
than in the human being. To put it somewhat differently: in all of
these systems which precede the blood-system there must first be
present everything, in a preparatory plan, which is capable of
receiving the blood. This means that we must have a nervous system
exactly fitted to receive a blood-system such as that of
man; we must have a glandular system which is perfectly
prepared for the circulation of human blood; and the system of
nutrition must likewise be thoroughly prepared for the human
blood-system. This signifies in turn, however, that even from the
other aspect of man's organism, for example, the whole
nutritional system, which we have described as expressing the actual
physical body of man, there must be present the potentiality of the
ego. The entire process of nutrition must, as it were, be so directed
and guided through the organism that the blood can finally move in
the courses which are right for it. What does that mean?

Diagram 19Click image for large view

Let us assume, since
everything is absolutely determined in its formation and its
particular kind of activity by the quality of man's being, that
we had to draw the course of the blood (in a mere diagram, of course)
in this fashion. We should then have to say that this circulation of
the blood must now be received by the rest of the organism, which
must fit itself into this. This means that all the other systems of
organs must be directed to the very place, or to the neighbourhood,
where the blood has to be. We could not have the whole texture of the
blood-vessels, as this exists in our head for example, or in some
other part of our organism, if what is necessary to it were not in
each case directed just where the blood is to circulate. That is, the
force-systems (which I here indicate by a second line) must act in
the human organism, beginning with the nutritive system, in such a
way that they carry all the nutritive matter to the proper places,
and at the same time so form it beforehand that in these places, by
means of such preparation of the nutritive matter, the blood-system
can hold exactly to the form of the course it now takes, and thereby
be an expression of the ego. There must, accordingly, be contained in
all the impulses of our nutritive apparatus, that is, our lowest
organ-system, just that thing which makes of man an ego. In other
words, the entire form which man finally presents to us must be
incorporated in what we call the various methods of nutrition. Here
we are looking down from the blood into the organ-systems which
prepare the circulatory course of the blood, far, far down, from our
ego to those processes which go on in the darkness of our organism.
Although our blood is the expression of our ego-activity, the most
conscious activity in us, it is at the same time necessary to look
down into the obscure depths of our organism and say that the way in
which our organism down there is built up and formed through other
processes, concerning which we do not know at all how the different
substances are carried to those places where they ought to be, in
order that our organism may be constructed by the several
force-systems just as the ego desires to have it — this shows us
that, beginning with the nutritive processes, there are present in
man's organism all the laws which lead ultimately to the
formation of the course of the blood.

Now, the blood
presents to us the most mobile, the most active, of all our systems.
We know, indeed, that even if we interfere only very slightly with
the course of the blood, it follows at once another direction from
the one it takes in the normal course. We need only prick ourselves
and the blood at once takes another direction from its usual one.
This is of infinite importance; for we can see from it that the blood
is the most easily controlled element in the human body; that it has
a good foundation in the other organic systems while at the same time
it is the most controllable of them all, has the least stability
within itself, and is more determined than any other system by the
experiences of the conscious ego. I shall not now go into the
fantastic theories of external science concerning blushing or turning
pale from feelings of shame or anxiety; I shall merely point to the
purely external fact that, underlying such experiences as fear or
anxiety, or the feeling of shame, are ego-experiences which are
recognisable in their effect upon the blood. With the feeling of fear
or anxiety it is as if we wanted to guard ourselves, so to speak,
against something which we believe will have an influence upon us: we
draw back with our ego. With the feeling of shame we would best of
all like to hide ourselves, to obliterate our ego. In both cases,
referring only to the external facts, the blood, as an external
physical instrument, follows physically what the ego lives through in
itself. In the case of feelings of fear and anxiety, where a man
would like to draw back into himself completely, from something which
he feels to be threatening him, he becomes pale; the blood draws back
to its centre, draws inward. When a man would like to hide himself
because of his sense of shame, would like to obliterate his ego, or
best of all not to exist, or to slink away somewhere, the blood,
under the influence of what the ego may here live through, spreads
out as far as the periphery. And so you see from this that the blood
is the most easily controllable system in man, and that it can follow
in a definite way the experiences of the ego.

Now, the further we
go down into the organic systems, the less are they regulated so as
to follow our ego in this way, the less inclined to adapt themselves
wholly to the inner experiences of the ego. Whatever especially
affects the nervous system is regulated as we know along certain
definite nerve-courses, and these nerve-courses show us something
relatively fixed, in their functioning, in contrast to the blood.
Whereas the blood is mobile, and can be guided under the influence of
ego-experiences from one part of the body to another, as happens in
the case of shame and fear, we must say, with regard to the nerve-
courses, that the forces which are active here must be the forces of
consciousness, and that these forces cannot carry the nerve-substance
from one place to another as can be done with the blood-substance.
This substance of the nervous system is, indeed, more fixed than the
substance of the blood.

And this is still
more true in the case of the glandular system, which shows us glands
that have certain definite tasks to perform in definite places within
the organism. If a gland has to be brought into activity by some
means or other to some definite purpose, it cannot be aroused by
means of some such cord as the nerve-cord; rather it must be
stimulated at the very place where it is situated. That which is
contained in the glandular system, therefore, is even more fixed than
the nerves; we must excite the glands where they are. Whereas we can
guide the activity of the nerves along the nerve-cords (we have in
this system connecting fibres also, which unite the separate
ganglions), the gland must be looked for where it is located.

Still more striking,
however, is this process of fixation, this process of being inwardly
determined (not “being determinable”) in everything that
has to do with the system of nutrition, by means of which man
incorporates substances directly into himself in order to be a
physical, sensuous being. For this incorporating of substances there
must, nevertheless, be available a thorough preparation for the
instrument of the ego as well as for the other instruments.

Thus, when we observe
the human organism primarily with reference to its lowest system, the
nutritive system, in its broadest sense, by means of which the
substances within the organism are conveyed to all its various
members, we may say that these substances must be so regulated that
the formation, the external structure, of the man may proceed in a
manner which finally renders possible the manifestation of the ego
within this human organisation. To this end much is necessary. It is
necessary not only that the substances of nutrition be conveyed in
the most diverse ways, that they be deposited in all the different
parts of the organism; but also that all possible provision be made
to determine the outer form of the human organism.

Now, it is important
that we should be clear as regards the following: in what we have
called the skin are represented indeed, as we have found, all the
systems of the human organism, so that we have been able to come even
to the lowest system itself, the nutritive system, and to say that
everything which in the strictest sense belongs to the physical
system of man, considered as the system of nutrition, is poured into
the skin. Yet you can easily understand that this skin as such, in
spite of the fact that it has all these other systems in it, has one
great defect. It does, to be sure, correspond to the form of the
human organism; yet, of itself alone, it would not have this form.
In spite of the fact that it has all the organ-systems in itself, it
would not of itself be capable of giving to man the outline of his
form. If that alone were present which is present in the skin, man
would collapse, through it alone he could not maintain his upright
form. From this we see that not only are there necessary those
nutritive processes which make the skin a physical system, but that
there must also be possible other manifold nutritive processes which
determine the form of the human organism as a whole. At this point,
therefore, it will not be difficult to grasp the fact that we must
consider those nutritive processes which go on in the
cartilage and the bones as such transformed
nutritive processes. What sort of processes are they?

When the matter
contained in our nutritive substances is conducted to a cartilage or
a bone, it is really transported only as physical matter; and what
we ultimately find in the cartilage or the bone is nothing else than
the transformed nutritive substances. Here, however, they are
transformed otherwise than in the skin. We must, therefore, conclude
that we have, in the skin, transformed nutritive substances which are
deposited in the outermost boundary of our body, following the
outline of its form, for the purpose of making us into physical man;
yet, on the other hand, through the way in which the nutritive matter
is deposited in the bones, we must also see that there we have to do
with a nutritive process which rounds out the human form but which,
in comparison with that expressed in the skin, is a different
transformation of the nutritive process. And now, if we follow the
method of observation we used earlier in connection with the nervous
system, it will not any longer be hard for us also to understand that
this entire nutritive process is our transportation system for the
supply of food.

When we look at the
skin, which finally shuts man off from the outside world, and when we
observe the nutritive substances that bring about that external
enclosure which in itself certainly provides man with his surface
structure, but which could not of itself produce the human form, it
then becomes clear that this sort of nutritive process which is
active in the skin is the most recent one in the human organism. In
the manner of providing nourishment to the bones we see a process
which bears a similar relation to the process of nourishment in the
skin to that which we attributed to the process of the formation of
the brain, as compared with that of the formation of the spinal cord.
Just as the brain appeared to us to be the older organ, and the
spinal cord the younger, and the brain appeared to be a metamorphosed
spinal cord, so here we have a right to say: if that same thing which
we see as the latest, external process of skin-formation is imagined
at a maturer stage metamorphosed, we can then recognise this in the
firmer, self-solidifying process of nourishment which appears in the
building up of the cartilage and the shaping of the bones.

This observation of
the human organism might, therefore, point us to the following
conception, namely, that what to-day appears before us as the bony
system, in which the process of nourishment shows us a quality of
inner stability, an earthy quality, so to speak, this bony system
actually did, at an earlier stage, also develop in a softer substance;
and only later did it become hard and take on the form of the firm
bony system. This can be indicated even by external science, which
teaches us that certain forms which in later life are quite clearly
bones in the human organism are in the early years of childhood still
soft, have the quality of cartilage. This means, therefore, that out
of a softer, cartilaginous mass the bones are formed, as a result of
the depositing of a different sort of nutritive matter from that
which is deposited in the mass of cartilage. Here we have, indeed, a
transition from a softer to a firmer form, as this process still goes
on to-day in the individual human life. If we see, then, in the
cartilage an earlier stage of the bone, we may say that the whole
depositing of the bony system in the organism appears to us as
something representing a last result, as it were, of those processes
appearing in the nourishing of the skin. First, the substances must
in the simplest way be metamorphosed to the softest possible
substance and driven toward the organs of the body; and, when this
preparation has taken place, the nutritive process then can go on,
and certain parts can be hardened into bony matter, in order that the
form of the human organism as a whole may be the final result.

The nature of the
bones as we see them, on the other hand, gives us the right to
conclude from direct evidence that really we can find no further
progress in the nutritive process beyond that in the bony formation,
in so far as the human being, up to the present stage of his
evolution, is concerned. Whereas we have in the content of the blood
the most determinable substance in man, we have in the bony
substance, in that which appears before us in the form of the bones,
something which is not determinable, which has arrived at a stage of
maximum fixity of form. Indeed, if we continue our previous
observations, that the blood is man's most easily controlled
instrument whereas the nerves are less subject to his influence, we
must then consider that in the bony system, which is the foundation
of the entire human organization, we have something that has arrived
at the ultimate stage in its evolution so far as man of to-day is
concerned, something which represents the product of a final
metamorphosis. For this reason, moreover, everything which has to do
with forming the bony system, in spite of the fact that this must be
wholly directed toward the ego, must take place in such a way that
the bones may be ultimately the carriers and supporters of an
organism like this, in order that the courses of the blood may take
such directions as they should, and this in turn in order that in
these courses of the blood the human ego may have a proper
instrument.

I should like to ask
who would not look upon the human organism with the greatest
admiration, and say: “I have here before me that which must
have gone through the greatest number of transformations, the
greatest number of stages, which must have begun with the lowest
stage of a process of nutrition and finally have ascended, through
countless epochs, as far as the bony system, which at length has been
so constructed that it can be the firm bearer, the firm supporter of
the ego!” Once we become aware of how the tendency of the ego
works even in the forming of the separate bones, so that man can
ultimately become an ego-bearer, who of us would not be filled with
admiration before this edifice of the human organism and say:
“When we observe this human being we find we have two poles, as
it were, of physical existence represented in the blood-system, which
is the most subject to outside influence, and the bony system, which
is in itself the most solid of all, the one which has gone farthest
in the state of impermeability to influence.” In this bony
system of man the physical organisation has found the final
expression of itself, an ultimate conclusion, whereas in the
blood-system the human physical organisation has, in a certain sense
and at its present stage of existence, made a new beginning.

When we look at our
bony system, we can truly say that we revere it as an ultimate
conclusion of the human physical organisation. And, when we look at
our blood-system, we can say that we see in it a beginning, something
which could begin only after all the other systems of the
organisation were there first. We may say with regard to the bony
system: “Its first beginning must already have been present, as
a soft substance, before the glands could be given a place; for the
glands had, indeed, to be supported at their appropriate places by
the bone-forces; and such was the case likewise with the courses of
the nerves and the blood. The bony system is the oldest of the
force-systems belonging to the human organism; consequently it is
the foundation of our organisation.”

If, therefore, we
observe these two extremes in the human organisation, we find we have
in the blood-system the most mobile element, the element which is so
active within us that to a certain extent it follows every inner
stirring of the ego; and in the bony system we have something almost
entirely withdrawn from that over which our ego still has any
influence, we can no longer reach it with our ego; yet in spite of
this, the whole organisation of the ego is contained within its form.
Hence, even to purely external observation, the blood-system and the
bony system in man are like a beginning and a conclusion in contrast
to each other. And, if we thus look at ourselves, having a
blood-system which continually obeys all the stirrings of the ego, we
must conclude that human life really expresses itself in this active
blood. And when we look at our bony system we say: “It really
is somewhat isolated; it is that which draws aloof from our human
life, and serves it only as a support.” Or, to express it
differently: “Our pulsating blood is our life; our bony system
is that which has already withdrawn from a direct connection with our
life, because of its ancient origin; has already eliminated itself,
and continues merely to serve as a support, to give us form.”
Whereas in our blood we are alive, we are in truth already
dead in our bony system. And I urge you to look upon this
expression as a leitmotiv for the lectures which follow, for
it will help us to certain important physiological conclusions:
“Whereas in our blood we are alive, we are in our bony system,
strictly speaking, already dead!” Our bony system is like a
scaffolding, the thing in us that is least of all alive, only a
scaffolding to support us.

We have seen in man
from the first a duality. And here this duality confronts us
in yet another form: we have, on the one hand, in our blood that
which is the most vitally active, the most living thing in man; and,
on the other, we have in our bony system something which draws aloof
from this vital activity of ours, something which really already
bears death in itself. Moreover it is, in a certain sense, our bony
system which is least subordinated in its form to the life of the
ego. For this reason the bony system has already arrived, in its
form, at a certain final conclusion, even though it still continues
to grow, at that stage in a human life when the ego-experiences first
begin to stir inwardly. By the time of the change of teeth the bony
system has taken its form in the main; it then merely continues to
develop by growth those forms which it has produced. In the forming
of the new teeth, somewhere about the seventh year, we have the last
productive activity of which the bony system is capable. During that
very time when we ourselves still remain withdrawn from our inner
vital activity, the chief development of our bony system is
proceeding.

It is then, moreover,
that most mistakes are made in the giving of nutrition, when the bony
system is building itself out of the dark foundations and forces of
the organism. The way is prepared in these years for bone-diseases
such as rickets and the like, if the processes of nourishment are not
properly directed. Thus we see that what is withheld from the ego
works into our bony system.

It is entirely
different in the case of the blood-system, which follows in active
response the life of the individual human being and is more dependent
than any other system upon the processes of our conscious inner life.
It is a fallacy on the part of external science to believe that the
nervous system is more susceptible to inner experiences than is the
blood-system. I shall here point only to the fact that in a
phenomenon such as blushing, where a shifting of the blood takes
place, we have the very simplest form of the influencing of the
blood-system by way of the ego-experiences; likewise, when we become
pale from anxiety and fear, we have transitory expressions of
ego-experiences clearly manifested in the instrument of the ego. The
way the ego feels in fear or shame is expressed through its
instrument, the blood. You can understand, therefore, if such
expressions occur even in the merely transitory processes, that the
more lasting, habitual experiences of the ego must certainly manifest
themselves in the easily excitable element of the blood. There is no
passion, no instinct, no emotion, whether we experience these
habitually or whether they come to expression in an explosive way,
which does not pass over, as inner experience, to the blood as the
instrument of the ego, which does not there express itself
externally. All the unwholesome elements of the inner life of the ego
express themselves primarily in the blood-system. And so, wherever
we wish to understand anything that goes on in the blood-system, it
is important not merely to inquire as to the nutritive process but
even more to look into the soul-processes in so far as they are inner
ego-experiences, such as moods, habitual passions, emotions and the
like. Only the materialist will direct his attention chiefly to the
nutrition in connection with disturbances in the blood-system. For
the nourishment of the blood is dependent upon that of the physical
system, the glandular system, the nervous system, and the rest; and,
as a matter of fact, the nutritive matter is already thoroughly
filtered when it comes into the blood. If therefore the blood is to
be affected from without, the organism must be already in a seriously
diseased state. On the other hand all soul-processes, all processes
of the ego, react directly upon what is occurring in the circulation
of the blood.

Thus our bony system
is the one which most of all draws aloof from the processes of our
ego, while our blood-system accommodates itself more than any other
to these ego-processes. Indeed this bony system is by nature, we
might say, quite independent of the human ego, and yet adapted to its
purpose, with the exception of one single portion which, just because
it presents an exception to the characteristic of the bony system of
not being determinable by the ego, has given cause for all sorts of
mischief.

You know that there
is such a thing as “Phrenology,” an investigation of the
skull. This bone-investigation, in spite of the fact that, from a
certain materialistic point of view, it is looked upon as
superstition, has gradually, even where loyally fostered, taken on a
materialistic colouring in accordance with the general fashion of our
time. If we were disposed to characterise it somewhat crudely we
might say: Phrenology is carried on in general in such a way that the
expression of the inner nature of the ego is sought for in the forms
in which the skull is moulded. Thereby certain general principles are
set up, that one prominence in the skull signifies this, another
that, and so forth. The human qualities are sought for in the light
of these prominences, so that phrenology seeks in the bony system of
the skull for a kind of plastic expression of the ego. And yet, if it
is carried on in this way, even though it seems to look for spiritual
expressions in the structure pf the single bones, it is harmful. For
anyone who is a truly keen observer knows that no single
human skull is like another, and that no one could ever account for
this or that by way of generic elevations or depressions. Every
separate skull is so different from every other that in each we find
different forms.

Now, we have stated
that whereas the blood in its vital activity is the system that most
of all follows the ego, the bony structure withdraws from it, follows
it least of any. And yet, although the bones in general appear to be
designed according to type, the skull-bones and also the bones of the
face seem in a certain way to correspond to the human ego. Anyone who
observes the structure of the skull knows, at the same time, that
although man himself is an individual and his skull-structure is also
individual, yet this wonderful configuration of the skull has been
designed from the beginning in accordance with the particular human
individuality and must develop just as the other bones do only in a
different form for each man. How does this come about? It comes about
for the same reason that underlies the development of the individual
qualities of man in general; for the entire life of the individual
human being does not run its course only from a birth to a death, but
continues throughout many incarnations. Whereas our ego has no
influence, therefore, over the skull-structure in our present
incarnation, it has developed during the intervening period between
the last death and the last birth in accordance with the experiences
of the preceding incarnation, the forces which determine the
skull-structure; and it is these forces which determine the form of
the skull in this incarnation. What the ego was in the
preceding incarnation determines the form of the skull in
this one; so that in the structure of our skull we have an
external plastic expression of the way in which we, every single one
of us, again however as individuals, have lived and acted in the
preceding incarnation. Whereas all the other bones we have in us
express something which is common to man, the skull in its external
form expresses that which we were in an earlier incarnation.

Thus the element of
the blood, which is the most vitally active of all, can be determined
by the ego in this incarnation; our bones, on the other
hand, have already entirely withdrawn during this incarnation from
the influence of the ego, with the exception of the last remaining
case of the skull-bone which also, however, no longer follows the ego
in this incarnation, except only as the ego carries over its own
evolution from the one incarnation into the next, and so develops the
formative forces in the interval between the two that it can manifest
in these very bones what was our nature and character in the
preceding incarnation. There is no such thing as a general
phrenology; but, to sum up, we must judge every man according to what
he himself is; and the structure of our skull we must look upon as a
work of art. Of course we are compelled to recognise something
individual in the skull-structure; yet at the same time an individual
something that is an expression of the ego of a preceding
incarnation.

Thus we see that even
this form of bone-structure, as it appears in the structure of the
skull, is withdrawn from the blood to such an extent that the ego has
no more influence over it excepting only during the passing between
death and a new birth, when the ego receives, after death, still
stronger forces with which to overcome and shape for itself those
forces that have already completely withdrawn from the vital activity
in the man. When, therefore, anyone speaks about the idea of
reincarnation and says: “That is something which, speaking
generally, is beyond our judgment or reason,” one may answer:
“You can, if you will, convince yourself by tangible evidence
that the human ego was present in a previous incarnation. When you
take hold of a human head you have before you the tangible proof of
reincarnation!” And anyone who does not admit this, who sees
something paradoxical in the fact that, because of the way in which a
thing is formed externally, the way a thing appears in its outward
form, one is forced to infer something living that formed this
exterior shape out of its own inner life, such a person has no right
to deduce in any other case a living something when he comes across a
plastic structure. He who cannot admit as strictly logical the
conclusion that in the form of our individual skull is expressed the
configuration of our ego of preceding incarnations has also no right,
if he finds a shell, for example, to conclude from its form that at
one time there was a living being in it! And anyone who does so
conclude dare not dismiss the logical and absolutely equivalent
conclusion that, in the individual plastic formation of a man's
cranium, direct proof is given of the influence of an earlier life on
the present one.

Thus you see that we
have here one of the means by which to throw light by means of
physiology upon the idea of reincarnation. We must only give
ourselves time. If we are patient and wait, we shall discover where
proofs may be procured, and how to procure them. And anyone who might
be disposed to deny that there is logic in what has just been stated
would have to disown all palaeontology; for it rests on the same
inference. Thus we see how, by penetration into the forms of the
human organisation, we can trace it back to its spiritual
foundations.